The Lightstep (39 page)

She had determined to be herself. Should she therefore throw
herself away at once, just to prove that it was true? This was madness.
These were just night-thoughts, loose from the restraints of
reason. She was longing to be in love. Yes, she was. And so she
must take care. Not for the sake of society, or the fear of gossip.
For her own sake, she must.

He did not regard himself. It seemed to her that so many
people regarded themselves – Mother most of all. He did not. He
had his own belief. It was a terrible one, but it was not of himself.
She remembered Hofmeister's words over wine in the
Rhineland –
'Ay there's a man I envy!'
She did not envy him. His
beliefs meant pain to him, and pain to those around him. Like the
words of Nero, or Pilate, they brought death upon the innocent.
She could not share them.

And yet if she did not, why was she here?

She turned over again, and put her arms around herself to
embrace her own body.

I shall invite him, she thought. Tomorrow, he will dine with
me.

Even Pilate had had a woman who loved him.

She had come to the city full of vague notions about helping
in its defence. Now she rose the next morning with one clear
plan in her head – that Michel Wéry should dine with her that
evening. She spoke with the maid who came to dress her. A
senior footman came to hear what My Lady wanted, and she
instructed him as if she were in her own home. Then,
commandeering a maid for escort, she set out to find the citadel
Commander. She had decided that it would be better to give her
invitation in person. He must be beset by so many duties. It
would be too easy for him to decline a note that had been put
into his hand.

At the Commander's house they told her that he had gone out
before dawn. They believed there had been a conference in the
Prince's antechamber. She remembered the antechamber, and
went there boldly. It was empty. But a militia officer in the
corridor told her that the Commander had gone to the west wall
of the citadel. She smiled ruefully at her maid, and they went out
to the wall together. It was a vast, long sweep of masonry, with
many soldiers on it looking out to the west. She searched among
them for one man only.

She found him on the gun-platform of the north-west
bastion, among a group of his officers. He was looking through a
small telescope at something on the hill opposite. Some of the
others had telescopes too. She hesitated. She did not want to give
her invitation before so many witnesses. He might be
embarrassed. But if she waited a little way away from them, he
would see her and maybe make his way across to her.

Beside the group of officers were half a dozen soldiers
gathered around one of the long cannons. Their leader was looking
now to the officers, now to the hillside opposite. She stepped
up to the next embrasure and looked out, too.

At first she saw nothing to be interested in. The side of the
Kummelberg was as it always was. There was the farm and the
road. The hillside was mainly pasture but the crest was crowned
with a stand of trees. That was all.

Then movement caught her eye, and she saw the horsemen.

They were moving in a little group, some way down the
pasture from the hill line. There were – she could not count them
but she thought there were more than twenty. More than twenty
men, on horses, to the west of the city. The riders' coats seemed
to be blue and white.

The enemy!

There they were, in full view, moving gently down the hillside
towards the city. Maria stared at them. In the bright air she could
see the detail of their hats and boots and the lift of a horse's head
as a rider controlled its reins. Already they were a little below the
level of the bastion on which she stood. The space between her
and them must be less than a thousand paces. Her heart had
begun to tap against her ribs.

They were such a short distance away! She felt she could have
launched herself from the walls and flown down to them.
Certainly she could have walked down to the lower gate and on
down the hillside to meet with them in the valley bottom in a
matter of minutes. And if she did? The air between her and them
was as thin as the verge of death. What was it, really, that moved
on the far side of it? What demon cloaked those men that seemed
to be only men and yet would kill her if she stepped down to join
them? Soon – today, or in a few days – she would know, because
soon she would meet them indeed. She dreaded knowing it. But
she longed to know it too. And for the moment, in the bright sun
with the tense and excited men around her, she felt as strong and
cheerful as she had ever been in her life.

The gun captain was gesturing to the crew. Inch by inch, on
the gun trail and the wheels, they were levering it around so that
the barrel followed the progress of the doll-like horsemen on the
far slope. The captain stepped forward to do something at
the breech of the gun. The barrel dropped an inch or two.
Now the man was looking across at the officers again. Michel
lowered the glass from his eye.

'Try it,' he said to the gun captain.

The captain squinted along the line of the barrel. He seemed
to be waiting for something. On the far slope the horsemen were
still moving.

'Stand clear,' said the gun captain and stepped aside. He jerked
on a string. There was a spout of white smoke at the breech.

FAGH!
barked the gun, bounding back with appalling weight
and speed. A cloud of white smoke flew over the battlements and
into Maria's eyes. She knew the smell of it at once. A clearing on
the road. A wounded man.
Naughty boy you're not dead yet!
And
her ears rang and stung with the violence that had been done to
them.

This is it! she thought wildly. I am in a battle!

The smoke thinned. Michel and the other officers had their
glasses to their eyes again.

'Short,' said one.

'Short, and to the left.'

'There they go.'

Her ears were still ringing. The voices of the men sounded
light and dead to her. She wondered if her hearing had been
damaged. There was a tear in her eye from the smoke. She put up
a hand to wipe it away.

On the far hillside the horsemen had changed direction. They
were moving steadily back up the hill in the direction from
which they had come. They showed no sign of hurry or panic.
Had none of them been killed? She almost felt disappointed. She
had not seen where the shot had fallen.

'Sketching party,' said one of the officers. 'Taking a look at us,
that's all.'

'If they come that close again, you may fire on them,' said
Michel. 'Otherwise, save your powder. We don't want to let them
know how far or hard we can hit, yet.' He bent to listen to a
portly, grey-haired officer who had come panting up to the
group. His eyes met Maria's. For a moment her heart leapt. Then
she realized that the officer must be speaking about her.

'Lady Maria.'

'Yes, Commander?'

He made his way over, and bowed over her hand. Plainly he
wanted to be formal in front of all these officers.

'I am informed that a coach has come up from the city,' he
said. 'There is a woman in it who is asking for you.'

A coach. A woman. It would be Mother, come to storm at her
and insist that she be carried away. Her heart deadened within her.

Why could they not leave her alone?

'Where is she?'

'In the palace courtyard.' He looked at her, and his eyes were
concerned. 'If we may be of any assistance to you . . .'

'You are busy already, Commander,' she said.

They were standing a little apart from the others. The men
were watching them, but there would be no better chance than
this. Now, surely, was the moment to thank him for his hospitality
the night before, and to offer her invitation. She looked at his
face, and thought the words she had prepared to say to him. But
she did not say them. It seemed too great a step then. The enemy
was below the western walls. And another enemy was waiting in
the courtyard of the palace. She must face that first. Gently,
almost reverently, she restored her words to the closet of her
heart.

'I only ask that your messenger may return with me,' she said.
'To see that I am taken nowhere by force.'

'You will stay, or go, as you please and for no other reason,' he
said.

Her ears were still ringing as she left the gun platform.

It was an Adelsheim coach, with Ehrlich in the driver's seat. And
a woman was pacing slowly beside it, with little short steps as if
she was waiting for someone who was making her late for
church. She looked up as Maria and her maid followed her officer
escort into the courtyard.

'Anna!' cried Maria.

She ran. She flew across the courtyard and embraced her
governess in a whirl of dresses.

'Oh my dear,' said Anna. 'I am so glad you are
safe.'

'But how did you come here? How long have you been in the
city?'

'I came back yesterday, my dear. I went straight to the house,
because I thought you would be there. Since then we have been
searching the city for news of you.'

'We?'

'Ehrlich and Dietrich and I. Your mother and father and Franz
are all in Adelsheim.'

'In Adelsheim!' repeated Maria, relieved.

'Yes, my dear. They are waiting for us there.'

So mother had sent Anna back to bring her. How very like
her.

'Anna, I do not wish to go.'

'Oh but, my dear – you
must.
Your mother . . .'

How
like Mother, thought Maria, to send poor Anna on an
errand like this, assuming that the errand would succeed simply
because she willed it. If she had come herself there would have
been a battle indeed. Perhaps her mother had foreseen even that,
and had sent Anna simply because she was unwilling herself to
enter a confrontation she might not win. And of course she must
guess, without ever voicing it to herself, that it would hurt Maria
far more to reject Anna than it would to reject herself.

'I know you were angry with her, my dear. But really you
must not let that overwhelm your reason. Surely you see what
danger you are in if you stay here? Surely you do.'

Danger – the siege?

'This man,' said Anna, moving closer to her and lowering her
voice so that the bystanders could not hear. 'This man – what is
he? No doubt he is very clever. But he has no birth, no means –
your family could never permit a match. Surely you see that? If
you stay it can only be ruin on your name. You have such
prospects, and you will throw them all away.'

'Oh!' said Maria. She put her hand to her mouth as if to stifle
a laugh. 'Why is it,' she asked gaily, 'that all the world imagines I
am in love with Michel Wéry?'

Anna eyed her doubtfully. 'Are you not? But you have come
here! You have passed a night in the citadel already. Really, you
should not be surprised if people begin to think things. And what
they think matters, my dear. It does.'

'Why should I listen to gossip? This is simply idle tongues,
Anna. It always has been.'

'My darling – it does not need to be true. It only needs to be
widely supposed. Even if your mother chooses to believe you, the
world will not. You will not be received. No proper house will
look at you for a marriage. You must see that surely!'

See it? Of course she did. She had ridden up to the gate of the
city, unescorted and with her legs showing. She had thrown herself
into the company of a foreign officer, who was more a
mercenary than a gentleman in the eyes of the world.
I have killed
the person I was.
She had.

'It is madness!' exclaimed her governess.

'It is war, Anna. And what you call "the world" has fled away.'

'Oh, but the war will not last forever. Next year, things will be
as they were . . .'

Maria laughed. How ridiculous, to think that!

'Dear Anna. We have already seen their scouting parties. We
have fired on them. Soon they will be swarming over the west
bank. You must leave. Now, or at the latest tomorrow morning.
After that they may have crossed the river, and it will hardly be
safe.'

'But I am not leaving without you, my dear.'

'Anna – I am staying here.'

They stood facing each other under the bright sky of the
courtyard. After a moment Maria added, 'I feel it is my duty to
stay. And I will not go back to my mother.'

Anna sighed. 'Then I suppose I must stay with you.'

'Oh no! Anna dear, it will not be safe!'

'It will be as safe for me as for you,' said Anna dryly. 'Perhaps
even more so, since I am old and unattractive.'

'Oh, Anna, dear Anna, no!' cried Maria. She took her
governess's hands and caressed them. At all costs, she was
determined to prevent this. She did not want Anna in danger.
And she did not want Anna at her shoulder now, in this world of
glory and freedom that she had barely begun to explore.

'You must go to my father and mother,' she said. 'They will
need you. I have caused them great grief. And . . .' she hesitated.

She hesitated, because the thought that had suddenly presented
itself to her was enormous. The consequences would go
on, and on, far beyond the horizon of her understanding. In a
flash she saw that. And also she saw how very little, indeed, was
required from her. People were already thinking it and saying it.
It was almost as good as done already.

'Anna,' she whispered. 'You must tell them it is too late.'

'What . . .'

'The thing you feared, about that man. It is true.'

A sudden blankness, as if of pain, had entered Anna's eyes.

'Oh, my dear . . .'

It is true, thought Maria firmly. It is true, for the moment, for
this hour, because I will it to have been true.
Mother, see how I use
your weapons against you!

'It has already happened, Anna. And I have never been happier.'

'I so wished I had been in time,' groaned Anna.

'Anna! You must not blame yourself! Blame me, if you
must. Blame him, although truly he has done no more than I
desired. Blame my mother, who has driven me to put myself
beyond her recall. You are guiltless. You are the most wonderful
creature that ever lived . . .' (Oh, she could believe that, and say it,
and say it all the more fervently because it was true, even buried
in the middle of her lies!)'. . . and Anna, I tell you this, because I
believe you will understand it – although I cannot hope that
Mother will, and I know she will say such things to Father and
to Franz that they will surely disapprove. But I truly believe that
if Albrecht were still with us, he would counsel me to stay. You
must see that, Anna. For you truly loved him, too.'

'Yes, my dear,' said Anna, in a horrible, tired voice. 'And now I
have lost both of you.'

'No, Anna. You have not lost me. You can only lose me if you
will it, for I do not renounce you! And I do not believe you will
it. Wherever you are, and wherever I am, I shall think fondly of
you as long as I live. Oh, Anna,' (for now she was borne along by
the flood of her own drama, saying all the things she felt and that
normally she might have hesitated to give voice to).'I would keep
you here with me, for just one night. You will dine with me in
the palace, for I have rooms here. And I shall have a room made
ready for you too. Say that you will, for me?'